I was going to write a "sights and sounds," article about the overall Media Days experience, but I was honestly a tad overwhelmed with the amount that was going on. Here are a few insights, opinions and observations from what I did see.
DAY 1
Commissioner Larry Scott: Seemed visibly relieved that AT&T's purchase of DirecTV essentially took that issue off the table for the media. The whole process is an optimistic "wait and see" and I don't imagine a deal gets done before September.
ASU Coach Todd Graham: He enjoys this. He enjoys talking ASU football, he reveled in the optimism surrounding the program, he was respectful to the media, he was playful without being dismissive of the event at hand, and he gave substantive responses to questions. The conditions were such that he was in an ideal element, and made an impression with a lot of the NorCal, Utah and other media members I spoke with. I sat through every coaches media session, and went to every coaches lunch table Q&A. Graham is one of two coaches who seemed comfortable, optimistic and relatable.
Oregon State coach Gary Andersen: The first of the many coaches who were forced to answer the same QB questions over and over again by media members who were more invested in the free meals than they were the process of finding decent content. Andersen's mood turned when he ended an answer with "any time I'm in a position to compromise what I believe in coaching, that's hard to be in the middle of it." He seemed to still be a little sore about Wisconsin, but perked up when someone asked him the last time he coached a freshman QB and he got to talk about Chuckie Keaton at Utah State. Mike Riley was kind of know for talent development and finishing strong. He's the only new HC in the Pac-12, but didn't seem at all intimidated (nor did he seem overly excited).
UCLA coach Jim Mora: More Media descended on Mora than anyone else. They asked questions about Rosen, but he really wasn't able to answer. He said he hasn't seen him in action yet. There were a lot of non-football questions asked. To my surprise, in a 35 minute media session, nobody asked him about Paul Perkins. Nobody. Perkins was the first Bruin to lead he P12 in rushing since 2001, and he wasn't even a topic. I write for the high school site, so I used the last question of the session to bring him up. Perkins will have to shoulder a lot with a freshman QB back there if Rosen starts, so I personally anticipate a dropoff in production. Mora did not. He said he's bigger, stronger, faster, and will improve. To me, If he even matches last year's production he'll be a Heisman candidate. Mora played the "new guy" card a couple of times, but this is year 4- the media wasn't really buying that.
Washington coach Chris Petersen: He didn't really want to answer Boise State related questions. The media didn't care, and it was sort of his fault for steering them in that direction when he was clarifying the second question of the session. He cracked a joke here and there, about how maybe the team was underperforming because they were watching too much MMA. You could sort of tell that he wasn't used to having momentum or excitement in his corner at a media day. Last year he was the shiny new object from the fun blue turf school, and had 90 wins over the previous 8 seasons at BSU. He didn't seem optimistic about this season after losing talent on defense, wide receiver, and not havig a clear QB frontrunner in 2015.
Stanford Coach David Shaw: Calm, cool, collected, had the momentum finishing last season strong, and had a good 2014 recruiting class to talk about. I talked to him a bit about the amount of players that are playing as true seniors from his 2012 class, and missed part of his session to interview LB Blake Martinez. One thing he talked about last year that I thought was interesting was that he felt he had lost the ability to motivate the team and get them to have fun. It took internal team leadership to get them there. Some media members even were ballsy enough to mutter that he wasn't a good motivator while he was telling that story, which I found interesting. Todd Graham implied that he thought they'd have a strong team, so I took that assessment to an ESPN and Scout writer that were there and cover Stanford and asked them if they agreed. They did not. They seem to think this year will look like last year.
Colorado Coach Mike MacIntyre: Much of the media left for the lunch session, so coach Mac's session was a little more intimate and gave a few creative media types a chance to ask some really good, really insightful questions. MacIntyre comes off as a very intelligent, very measured guy who's intent on outthinking the disadvantages he has in heading up the Pac-12's weakest school. They need to generate revenue, so they took on a 13th game and don't get any breaks this season. One person had the balls to ask if he'd rather have one victory over a quality opponent or stack up a few wins against inferior schools to give the illusion of improvement. I cringed. I asked him about an Arizona kid that is listed at two positions and he said that he wasn't planning on playing him both ways, but he was going to give him the opportunity. That kid is Isaiah Oliver. If I was Mac I'd play Oliver on both sides for the entire game, as well as special teams.
DAY 1
Commissioner Larry Scott: Seemed visibly relieved that AT&T's purchase of DirecTV essentially took that issue off the table for the media. The whole process is an optimistic "wait and see" and I don't imagine a deal gets done before September.
ASU Coach Todd Graham: He enjoys this. He enjoys talking ASU football, he reveled in the optimism surrounding the program, he was respectful to the media, he was playful without being dismissive of the event at hand, and he gave substantive responses to questions. The conditions were such that he was in an ideal element, and made an impression with a lot of the NorCal, Utah and other media members I spoke with. I sat through every coaches media session, and went to every coaches lunch table Q&A. Graham is one of two coaches who seemed comfortable, optimistic and relatable.
Oregon State coach Gary Andersen: The first of the many coaches who were forced to answer the same QB questions over and over again by media members who were more invested in the free meals than they were the process of finding decent content. Andersen's mood turned when he ended an answer with "any time I'm in a position to compromise what I believe in coaching, that's hard to be in the middle of it." He seemed to still be a little sore about Wisconsin, but perked up when someone asked him the last time he coached a freshman QB and he got to talk about Chuckie Keaton at Utah State. Mike Riley was kind of know for talent development and finishing strong. He's the only new HC in the Pac-12, but didn't seem at all intimidated (nor did he seem overly excited).
UCLA coach Jim Mora: More Media descended on Mora than anyone else. They asked questions about Rosen, but he really wasn't able to answer. He said he hasn't seen him in action yet. There were a lot of non-football questions asked. To my surprise, in a 35 minute media session, nobody asked him about Paul Perkins. Nobody. Perkins was the first Bruin to lead he P12 in rushing since 2001, and he wasn't even a topic. I write for the high school site, so I used the last question of the session to bring him up. Perkins will have to shoulder a lot with a freshman QB back there if Rosen starts, so I personally anticipate a dropoff in production. Mora did not. He said he's bigger, stronger, faster, and will improve. To me, If he even matches last year's production he'll be a Heisman candidate. Mora played the "new guy" card a couple of times, but this is year 4- the media wasn't really buying that.
Washington coach Chris Petersen: He didn't really want to answer Boise State related questions. The media didn't care, and it was sort of his fault for steering them in that direction when he was clarifying the second question of the session. He cracked a joke here and there, about how maybe the team was underperforming because they were watching too much MMA. You could sort of tell that he wasn't used to having momentum or excitement in his corner at a media day. Last year he was the shiny new object from the fun blue turf school, and had 90 wins over the previous 8 seasons at BSU. He didn't seem optimistic about this season after losing talent on defense, wide receiver, and not havig a clear QB frontrunner in 2015.
Stanford Coach David Shaw: Calm, cool, collected, had the momentum finishing last season strong, and had a good 2014 recruiting class to talk about. I talked to him a bit about the amount of players that are playing as true seniors from his 2012 class, and missed part of his session to interview LB Blake Martinez. One thing he talked about last year that I thought was interesting was that he felt he had lost the ability to motivate the team and get them to have fun. It took internal team leadership to get them there. Some media members even were ballsy enough to mutter that he wasn't a good motivator while he was telling that story, which I found interesting. Todd Graham implied that he thought they'd have a strong team, so I took that assessment to an ESPN and Scout writer that were there and cover Stanford and asked them if they agreed. They did not. They seem to think this year will look like last year.
Colorado Coach Mike MacIntyre: Much of the media left for the lunch session, so coach Mac's session was a little more intimate and gave a few creative media types a chance to ask some really good, really insightful questions. MacIntyre comes off as a very intelligent, very measured guy who's intent on outthinking the disadvantages he has in heading up the Pac-12's weakest school. They need to generate revenue, so they took on a 13th game and don't get any breaks this season. One person had the balls to ask if he'd rather have one victory over a quality opponent or stack up a few wins against inferior schools to give the illusion of improvement. I cringed. I asked him about an Arizona kid that is listed at two positions and he said that he wasn't planning on playing him both ways, but he was going to give him the opportunity. That kid is Isaiah Oliver. If I was Mac I'd play Oliver on both sides for the entire game, as well as special teams.
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